Out-of-Field Teaching, Educational Inequality and the Organization of Schools: An Exploratory Analysis - Analyzing data from the National Center for Educational Statistics' SASS (Schools and Staffing Survey), this study reports elementary and secondary teacher qualifications and the prevalence of out-of-field teaching in schools sorted by urbanicity and minority and poverty enrollment. The author suggests that teachers are often in out-of-field assignments not because of a lack of job candidates for the position, but because of district policies or choices made by administrators to allow out-of-field teaching to take place in a school or district. (Richard M. Ingersoll, Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington, January 2002)...